Daytona gives blessing to huge condo hotel project

Published: Thursday, March 21, 2013 at 5:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, March 21, 2013 at 7:17 a.m.

DAYTONA BEACH — A massive $150 million condo hotel project, the biggest beachside development in the city's history, is ready to race toward its groundbreaking date in August and opening in the fall of 2015.

The groundbreaking on this planned $150 million condo hotel in Daytona Beach is planned in August.

Artist rendering

Facts

The developers

The developers who plan to build a new condo hotel project on Daytona Beach's oceanfront are part of a family company called Protogroup Inc. Protogroup's properties include a chain of six supermarkets in St. Petersburg, Russia, as well as several hotels, including a Days Inn Hotel in Palm Coast that opened in 2010. The company's other hotel properties include the Danica Hotel in Montenegro and four more in St. Petersburg, Russia: the Petro Palace Hotel, the Petro Sport Hotel in Russia, a Holiday Inn and a Staybridge Suites.

With unanimous votes Wednesday night from city commissioners to rezone the project's 4.5-acre property south of Seabreeze Boulevard and have the city help cover costs of the 1.22-million-square-foot complex, the developers can now turn their attention to wrapping up design plans, securing permits and hiring a construction company.

"Every now and then a project comes along that makes you say, 'Wow.' This is one of them," Dan Francati, president of the Daytona Beach Kennel Club & Poker Room, told city commissioners.

"We truly believe this is going to be the thing that turns the corner for us in Daytona," the developer's attorney, Rob Merrell, told commissioners.

With the condo hotel site on the oceanfront and a five-minute walk away from the Ocean Center, hopes are running high for what the new independent four-star facility could do for pulling in large conventions and spurring new restaurants and shops to open nearby.

"It's going to provide us an opportunity to move ahead much quicker," said Jeff Hentz, president and CEO of the Daytona Beach Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. "We're blessed to have a project like this, and how much they believe in our destination. It's nothing but a positive for our community."

The force behind the project is a Russian company led by a father and two sons who live part of the year in Palm Coast and the other part in Russia. That company, Protogroup, owns a chain of six supermarkets in Russia as well as a hotel in Montenegro and four hotels in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Now Protogroup plans to add Daytona Beach to its list of investments, building two 300-foot-plus towers on the oceanfront at the eastern tip of Oakridge Boulevard.

The company's vision is to create a 29-story condo building with 105 rooms, a 26-story hotel with 500 rooms and street-level shops fronting State Road A1A. The property could include 15,100 square feet of meeting space, 14,000 square feet of retail space, indoor and outdoor pools, a spa, a fitness room, a ballroom, a roof garden, penthouses and a state-of-the-art automated parking structure.

"I'm very excited," Alexey Lysich, vice president of Protogroup, said after the meeting.

After first checking into building something similar in Miami, Lysich said his company chose Daytona Beach because it's "very calm, beautiful and the weather is good."

Protogroup will shoulder the vast majority of its $150 million expense, but the city will give the company some help. An agreement Protogroup and the city negotiated over the past few months will allow Protogroup to be reimbursed some of its impact fees and receive some city money because part of the site is located in a redevelopment area.

The enormity of the project will require upsizing the water and sewer lines running from State Road A1A to Peninsula Drive. Protogroup has agreed to increase the size of the pipes beyond what it needed for the project so the entire area has capacity for further development in the future. When that work is completed, the city will reimburse Protogroup for its costs using impact fees the company paid.

The project site straddles a beach approach that will be improved and remain open to the public. The estimated cost to install decorative lights, pavers, landscaping, signage, a small fountain and stormwater infrastructure is about $450,000, according to a recent memo from Deputy City Manager Paul McKitrick. The city will reimburse Protogroup about $90,000 per year over five years for that work, McKitrick said in his memo.

Lysich said he hopes to choose a general contractor by the end of April. His company will also need to secure a string of permits from the city and agencies including the state Department of Environmental Protection, state Department of Transportation and St. Johns River Water Management District.

In addition to the construction jobs the project will create, Protogroup also estimates 400 permanent jobs will be created.

Mayor Derrick Henry said at Wednesday's meeting that he hasn't received a single negative comment about the project, something he doesn't ever recall happening in his years as a city commissioner and mayor.

"I can't tell you how odd that is," Henry said.

The Protogroup project comes as a group of Canadian investors is working to build a $100 million-plus condo hotel project of its own on a 10-acre site south of International Speedway Boulevard, also on the oceanfront.

That project isn't as far along, but construction could begin on it at the end of this year, according to local attorney Glenn Storch, who's working with the Canadian investors.

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